One of the necessities for someone who uses their bike to get around 24/7 come rail, hail or shine are waterproof gloves. Almost as bad as having freezing cold soggy socks inside soaking wet cycling shoes, soggy gloves (especially full-fingered gloves) pretty much ruin a ride in the rain.
There’s nothing worse than getting to your destination and having to run your hands under a warm tap for five minutes because your fingers have frozen solid due to water seeping into your gloves.
Netti bill their ‘Winter Pro’ gloves as ‘waterproof and windproof gloves’ designed to tackle the ‘harshest of winter weather‘.
When I got the gloves they were initially waterproof but throughout the first winter season they started to let rain water in…
Just to be clear, I don’t wash my waterproof gear. I know that a thorough submerged-in-water wash can damage the waterproof coverings used on these garments so I instead air them out when I can to dry them and keep them from smelling.
That said within a few months of use my Netti Winter Pro gloves started to let rainwater in as a I was riding and this became a huge problem. Not that it rained much but when it did, whatever is inside the Netti glove absorbed water and left my fingers submerged in fabric that was like a sponge of freezing cold water.
When I got to my destination I could literally wring out a cup of water from each glove (after I’d warmed my hands and fingers up to the point they could move freely again).
With waterproofness being the single most important deciding factor in my purchase of Netti Winter Pro gloves, sadly I’m going to have to look elsewhere for a replacement.
It’s a bit of a shame though as otherwise the gloves are quite nice to wear. The inside fits snugly and I can do most things I can do with half-finger gloves (even click in my helmet strap).
Windproof wise the Netti gloves are superwarm on the bicycle, although they do have their limits on a scooter. Anymore than 30 mins or so of ice-cold wind and my hands start to go numb, never had this problem on the bicycle though.
Design wise the gloves aren’t too out there, using a black and white template. One niggling fault I have with the wrist portion of the Winter Pros is that I felt the gloves could have benefited from a longer wrist cuff.
My winter gloves are almost always worn with one of my Ground Effect winter jackets and a few times a ride the glove cuff will pop out from the sleeve as it’s not all that long.
The Winter Pros can also be a bit difficult to take off after you’ve been wearing them for a while as the inner glove shell fits your hand quite snugly. This I believe is the tradeoff for having a nice fitted glove in that you need to spend a bit of extra time getting them off.
On the bottom of the Winter Pro glove you’ve got one gel padded area with the rest of the glove being unsupported.
Comfort wise the Winter Pros are a bit thicker than my fingerless gloves and the Long Haul Trucker absorbs a lot of the road bumps anyway, so I haven’t had an issue with numb palms despite the lack of padding.
If you’re after a winter glove to keep your hands warm and have a great fit, then the Netti Winter Pro gloves will do the job. Anything more than that however and they fall short.
Not being waterproof, I’m going to have to try another pair of winter gloves for use in the rain. For now my Netti Winter Pro gloves are being used when it’s cold but dry.